The Prosecutor General of Kinshasa-Gombe has opened an investigation into the overcharging of infrastructure works carried out under the Sino-Congolese contract “Mines against infrastructure”, concluded in 2008, under former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese justice takes action after the publication of the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), which had pointed to financial irregularities so far denied by China.
At this stage, the prosecutor is only interested in the work carried out, estimated at 822 million US dollars, for around forty declared works. This sum, according to him, does not correspond to the little infrastructure built for a contract in which the Congolese side should have got away with three billion US dollars in infrastructure. The Chinese side, meanwhile, has already pocketed more than triple, according to the IGF.
For the prosecutor, the work is either overcharged, unfinished, or not executed, while the costs of implementation have been fully paid. “Everything suggests misappropriation of public funds,” says Attorney General Robert Kumbu, who bases himself on the exaggeration of unit road costs, certain fees, and the existence of fictitious headings in invoicing.